Root Beer Guy Investigations
by mutedneon
Summary: Root Beer Guy, captain of the Banana Guard and maybe-just-a-bit-inadequate husband, gets a call from the Princess herself one early morning, and gets thrown into a bizarre case unlike anything he's ever seen. Join Root Beer Guy, Cherry Cream Soda, Peebles, and maybe even a random minor character or two as they crack the case! Takes place before 'Something Big'.


"ROOT BEER GUY!"

I almost felt blown away by the incredibly loud, fuming voice on the other end of the old cord phone. The familiar voice was piercing and unwavering. I had to gather my thoughts before squeaking out a response - I could almost feel the bags under my eyes I was so tired. That would be impossible, actually. So they weren't actually there. Because I'm made of glass. Or at least my head i- anyways.

"What is it Princess?" I drawled, my speech slow, but alert as I could muster; I'd just woken up and even though my history as a morning-shift worker back at the... everywhere else I'd ever worked... should dictate otherwise, I always had a slow start in the mornings. Especially at 3am.

The lights were all still switched off and the only sound outside of my own voice, the panicked voice of the princess, and I guess some wind or something rattling outside, was the gentle padding of our cat's paws on the hardwood floor.

"THERE'S A MURDER SCENE IN THIS HOUSE YAH DING DONG!"

"Wait, seriously?"

"YES."

She said it like it was obvious.

I whispered some shocked insult to Glob under my words, my breath hitching as Bubblegum kept yelling weird curses into the receiver, failing to mention whose house she was even in. Hers? Did she even HAVE a house? Was the castle her house? I couldn't guess.

A part of me was upset. I mean, a murder in the candy kingdom might not be the rarest occurrence, but it was always sad when it happened. And kinda strange, too. Shouldn't living sweets be a little less violent a little more, well, sweet? And I mean, there were some dark reasons - we had a spike in ritual sacrifices a while ago. Yeesh. If this really was the "sweetest place in Ooo", I'd hate to travel... literally anywhere else.

But another part of me, a more prominent part, was thrilled. And I probably shouldn't have been, but the urgency in Bubblegum's voice, the mixture of fear and panic and confusion I could easily pick apart, led me to believe this was a special case.

You see, in a normal situation, Bubblegum would call me over whenever it was convenient for her, have me dissect the scene and bingo bango, there we go. Clone the victim arrest the culprit and it was all over in time for dinner. Because yah see, candy people are - and I hate to stereotype, but it's kinda true - very, very dumb and thus very, very bad criminals. They usually leave some decisive evidence it takes me three seconds to find and all I have to do is point it out to the suspect and they break down and confess within the minute.

I almost felt sorry for them.

So, yeah, maybe I was excited for what might be an interesting case. But now wasn't the time to mull over my feelings. I could ruminate any other day, and this situation, the screaming Princess made clear, was pretty urgent.

I finally spoke up.

"Oh, oh geez! I'll be right there Princess!" I paused. She paused. No doubt expecting me to hang up and dash over.

I dropped the excitement in my voice for a prodding, confused whisper. "Where are you?"

"Ah geez, er..." She didn't sound quite as distressed now, but I didn't bother wondering how many of her emotions had been genuine versus a facade made up to drag me out so early. Or maybe I did. Either way, she repeated some address to me and I scribbled it down on any scrap I could gather up.

I hung up the phone without another word, ran into the coat closet and slipped on my uniform jacket that made me look like a rad security guard and changed into a determined expression.

I padded into my room, trying to keep moving quickly but still staying wary as to not awake my wife. I grabbed my hat from the night stand, and slipped it over my poofy... hair? Foam? Huh. I never really thought about what that was. I HAD to have the hat though; it made me feel official.

And with that, I was off. Or I would be, but I turned at the sound of footsteps right as I reached for the knob of the front door. It was Cherry Cream Soda.

"Root Beer Guy?" She grumbled, still waking up. She was blinking the haze of early morning from her eyes, and I sighed when I noticed she just seemed confused, not angry.

"Er...Uhm..." Grod I hated how I stuttered. It made me sound suspicious. "Yea?"

"Isn't it a bit early?" She groaned, still squinting. "What happened to leaving for work at seven?"

"It's important..." I paused, grinding my teeth. "...Sweetie."

I knew she hated me getting caught up in my work, especially when it interfered with a normal day. And I don't know about you, but the days that start at 3am are rarely normal for us. And as happy as she was about my high-ranking job and even now offered pecks on the cheek now and again in congratulations, she never let the thought of how easily I got obsessed go. Boy, you should've seen her when I snuck the typewriter out of the trash. 'I thought you were finished with that!' 'Starting up THIS again!?' Yeesh.

She gave me a glare. I saw her eyes almost light up, and I gulped dramatically like nervous people in movies tended to do.

"More important than a good night's rest for the both of us, hmm?"

Ah geez, she always seemed to corner me like this, and it wasn't really scary I guess, just... awkward. No matter what I said in response now, I'd sound like the bad guy. I looked around the room in front of me nervously, avoiding eye contact as best as I could.

"Look, I hate to stress you out but..."

"But what!?"

"But it's really important and I have to leave bye!"

I spat out my words with no inflection and as quickly as I could and darted out the door, accidentally slamming it in the face of a fuming Cherry Cream Soda. She'd - understandably, I guess - probably interrogate me and guilt me like mad when I got back home, but I couldn't blame her. She's really great actually, I swear! Don't let this account of her make you think she's bitter and just generally 'yuck', she's always looking out for my anxious - oh, I glanced down at the note in my hand, sweating as heavily from stress as my mad dash outta the place, and realized my stop was just a few houses down. Neato.

Boy, when I approached the door, lightly rapping on it with a glass fist, and heard the Princess stomp over, I smiled such a dorky smile.

This was gonna be a good case.

 _[I hope you guys enjoyed this little introduction to my first Adventure Time fanfiction! Man, I love this series so much – I'm already working on a number of oneshots plus the next chapter of this, which has been my little pet project for a while now._

 _Root Beer Guy is one of my favorite characters, so, not gonna lie, I was kinda disappointed that there aren't as many fanfictions about him! Time to fix that up, I guess. This has been a ton of fun so far – he's a very, how do you say, natural character to write as a narrator and just. I'm so excited to write more of this._

 _As always, if you enjoyed and/or want to see more, or even wanna offer some suggestions, you can review or favorite!]_


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